Branches News
NORTH WEST BRANCH CPD DAY AND
RECOLLECTIONS Trevor Bishop
Trevor Bishop is Associate Director at Capita Symonds working in partnership with Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council. He is a member of Council, representing the North West Branch Commercial Asset Management Group, a member of the Corporate Asset Management Group, a member of the Development and Regeneration Group, and a member of the Valuation Group. He is currently Senior Vice Chairman of the Branch.
“What I have found to be really heart- warming from my involvement in the NW Branch CPD in recent years has been the willingness of colleagues to pull together and support each other in the very challenging local government environment and the immense value of organisations such as ACES.”
Street so that the concession was made. Being the enthusiastic new boy however, I felt I had to pretty well immediately embark on the regime and so proceeded to read a copy of the Estates Gazette.
In May this year, if I hadn’t been on holiday that is, I would have experienced my 30th
anniversary of attendance at
ACES North West Branch CPD Events. Having been elected a Professional Associate of the RICS in late 1981, one of the first pieces of correspondence that I received was a curt reminder that only that year the General Council had made the new Byelaw 10 which required every member to undergo continuing professional development comprising 60 hours of qualifying activity in any period of three years.
This was of course compulsory for all new members from 1981, but voluntary for existing members in those days. I do remember some of the older chaps in my first working office having a good old dig at the RICS along the lines of “we jolly well know what we are doing and don’t need anyone else to tell us”. I suppose this attitude resounded loudly in the corridors of 12 Great George
THE TERRIER - Summer 2012
However, the serious business of getting out of the office and subjecting oneself to hours of talks and seminars soon followed in the new year. After a brief foray into a meeting of the Lancashire Branch of the RICS and a talk on “Practical Points for the GP Surveyor” (I think the branch was still finding its feet in this new arena) in June 1981 I attended the first seminar aligned to local authority work. This was organised by The Incorporated Society of Valuers and Auctioneers (Public Officers Committee) in collaboration with the North West Branch of the Association of Local Authority Valuers and Estate Surveyors (a bit of a mouthful). It must have been a baptism of fire as the morning seminar was entitled “Aspects of Local Government Finance” followed in the afternoon by “A Review of Foundation Problems in Areas of Past Present and Future Mining” when I noted some subsidence occurring in the audience.
Notwithstanding the subject matter, the seminar was at least enjoyed in the delightful surroundings of Haigh Hall near Wigan, of which more later.
And so a happy union with ALAVES at the time, followed by LAVA and
now ACES, took off as a convenient means of satisfying, in part at least, my requirements for RICS CPD hours. The venues moved around the NW region at first but then settled for some time at the nicely appointed Lancaster Suite of Haydock Park Racecourse, situated between Manchester and Liverpool. This venue was considered central to most members (the branch stretched from Cheshire to Cumbria) and straight off the motorway/East Lancs Road for convenience. It became a very popular event and attendance at its peak rose to around 300. Sadly the meetings were in the evenings on either side of summer so there was not much racing going on and we were not able to go down to the track and slap a monkey on a pony (or whatever regular race-goers did).
After a review of conference pricing by the Racecourse owners, the venue switched to Skelmersdale in Lancashire for many years, again very accessible, and then more recently to Haigh Hall at Wigan, where it all started for me at least.
Whilst the venues changed over the years, what didn’t alter was the consistently well run events by the NW Branch, the excellent and entertaining speakers we were able to draw in, the healthy attendance more often than not, and of course the vital learning experience and contribution to the coveted CPD points tally. The Branch
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